Beached Whale to be Buried at Breezy Point

Though we should have been prepared for the death of the endangered finback whale that washed up at Breezy Point Wednesday as it was highly unlikely to survive, it’s still all very sad. The 60-foot whale died Thursday, after a night of drifting with the tide along the bay.

The National Park Service has permission to bury the whale in the same dune that it washed up in Wednesday. The preparations will begin today or Saturday and will require the helps of the Department of Sanitation and the Army Corps of Engineers. There will be a necropsy at the burial site.

“It was clearly sick for a very long time,” said Mr. DiGiovanni of the Riverhead Foundation. Pieces of the whale have already been cut out and taken off site (for science) while the body will be hauled uphill a bit away from Beach 219th Street. The skeleton is likely to be removed and donated to a museum. “The rest” will be buried in the dune.

It is possible the whale was an adult and lived 90 full years. That’s pretty much all of un-sad that we got right now.